Austin R. Berg
Illinois Policy Institute Intern

The viral quote from Barack Obama’s speech at a campaign event in Roanoke this past Friday, “If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen” is debatably taken out of context, yet that should not distract the voter from Obama’s larger assertion.  The pertinent points are as follows: “If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own…somebody helped create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges…the point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.” Obama frames these remarks in the context of raising taxes for wealthy Americans.

It would be worthwhile to exhibit the individual from which Obama lifted this line of thinking, Elizabeth Warren. The US Senate candidate from Massachusetts, closely following her announcement of that candidacy ten months ago, made these remarks at a campaign event; “There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there—good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything in your factory...Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea--God bless! Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay it forward for the next kid who comes along” This is a patriotic, pathos-laden argument. It is also narrow-minded, morally dubious, and dead wrong.

Imagine Robert De Niro discussing with you, the owner of a small business that has contributed to the family for your protection, the way this whole “social contract” thing is going to work. They’ve collected your trash, made sure your place didn’t explode like the one across the street, but with the understanding that you didn’t make a profit by yourself. You’ve got to pay it forward to the family for the next kid who comes along, capisce? De Niro then wants to raise that amount, saying some problems have come up; bad investments, a few local shops went under and need a bailout, five turf wars, the Don’s mother needs surgery, etc. He ups it, and ups it again, to no foreseeable end. How much is enough? 40% of your income? 50%? When is it fair? The contribution inevitably continues to rise.

Anecdote aside, one must ask where the wealth came from to build roads, educate workers, and hire a police force. The only reason the government is able to provide these is because of the taxable income provided by businesses. With the Associated Press recently reporting on private insurance companies hiring fire crews to protect homes during wildfire season, it is becoming clearer that we may not even need these services to be publicly provided. Despite Obama asking us to “imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires” a business could realistically hire a fire crew, as well as a full time security staff to watch over their property, transportation, and education for their employees for less than the 40-50% of a moderately wealthy business owner’s income taken in federal and state income taxes, property taxes, and social security/Medicare taxes.

Obama's administration is finally crystallizing what it has been unable to communicate for years. Namely, that we are made prosperous not by the actions of entrepreneurs, but by our government; by the Don, not the butcher.

*please note opinions presented by our interns do not necessarily reflect opinions of the Illinois Policy Institute.